‘Pint sized’ Margaret downs a pint of milk. Hang on, is that possible? At the moment she’s a “pint-sized” 5ft tall, but soon things will be looking up for Margaret the giraffe. The female Rothschild giraffe was born prematurely at Chester Zoo after mother, Fay, went into labour two weeks early. But mother and daughter […]

The parents of Rhys Jones with Chester Zoo’s Alan Woodward The parents of gun victim Rhys Jones have adopted a lion cub dedicated to his memory at Chester Zoo. The 11-year-old’s friend James Rigby emailed zoo bosses after seeing the newly-born Tejas on television and thinking of Rhys. He urged them to dedicate the cub […]

A four-year-old girl’s helium balloon was not expected to struggle as far as the next street, let alone to another continent. Yet the balloon set free by schoolgirl Alice Maines somehow made it from her school in Manchester to a Chinese city 6,000 miles away. Now the pupil is cherishing a letter from the Chinese […]

Captive monkeys suffer ‘zoo stress’ when visitors peer at them and copy their behaviour, scientists have found. Studies on African mandrills at Chester Zoo found that being watched caused the monkeys to snarl, pace and behave abnormally. But putting a metre-wide barrier of shrubs between cages and viewing areas halved the monkeys’ anxiety levels and […]

The virgin komodo – Click to enlarge Zookeepers are preparing to celebrate a virgin birth this Christmas – by a Komodo dragon called Flora. She has stunned staff at Chester Zoo by becoming pregnant on her own, without so much as setting eyes on a male dragon. Now they are hoping for help to name […]